Installing a portable dishwasher isn’t extremely difficult, but you may have questions or be curious about how certain things operate. The below video from EdgeStar support covers the steps for installing your portable dishwasher and explains what the different buttons and parts do.

For more information on EdgeStar portable dishwashers, visit the Dishwasher Support page on EdgeStar.com.

Portable Dishwasher Accessories

So when you first unpack the unit you’ll find several accessories packed inside the dish basket. The first of these is your drain and fill hose with your dishwasher adapter already attached, which is this device here at the end. It’s also a quick connect, but I’ll cover that a little bit later. This comes packaged with the unit.

You have a detergent measuring scoop for convenient measuring of your detergent.

You also have a pictorial list of do’s and don’ts that come with the unit. They’re fairly simple to understand.

You have the owner’s manual that’s packed with the unit and gives complete information about install and general operating procedures along with the EdgeStar warranty.

And we also have the US Energy Guide for those concerned about energy consumption. It’s also included with the unit.

Inside the unit, we’re going to find the dish basket and the cutlery box, it’s where you put your forks and knives and other utensils. That just simply sits in there. And it rolls backwards and you close the door.

Detergent and Rinse Aid Dispensers

Now let’s talk about the inside of the unit. I’m going to open up the door here. On the inside of the unit when you first you first open it up you might notice some water spotting, maybe a few droplets of water. That’s normal. The factory quality checks each unit before it leaves and they actually run it for a few minutes, and during transit it will dry and create water spots or leave a few droplets inside the unit. That’s okay. That’s normal. Don’t be concerned about it.

The next thing I’m going to look at is our soap dispenser. And I’m going to go ahead and open it up, just like that. There’s a push button in the front here; you just push it in and it releases it. You’ll find that there are two chambers here. One is smaller than the other. And that’s going to correspond to the amount of loading you have, the amount of dishes you have in the dishwasher at any given time. You’ll use the smaller of the two chambers for a half load or less, and the larger of the two for a full load. Fill those up with your choice of detergent, although I do recommend Cascade, you can use the detergent of your choice. Once you’re done and you’ve filled it, close it and press it until it snaps. There’s some finger guides here so that you have a little more pressure when you close it.

And over here, we have our rinse aid dispenser. To use that, you simply turn the cap, remove it, and you’ll notice that this cap has groove guides, there’s also some guides here in the bottom. When you put that back on, you’re just going to line up the grooves and turn it clockwise to tighten it up. You don’t need to force it. Inside here you’ll pour your Jet Dry. This is how that is dispensed. There’s also a sensitivity control here for that. You can increase or decrease the amount of Jet Dry that you use depending on how hard your water is or what type of dishes that you have.

You can shut the door and then start your cycle.

Installing Hoses and Faucet Adapter

Let’s cover the installation basics on the hoses at the back of the portable dishwasher, and then I’m going to talk about the dishwasher adapter. To hook up your hoses on the back of the unit, you’ll find that there are two ports. This one is your intake port for your water coming in and this is your drain port. The drain hose, as you can see here, has a very large fitting. The other one does not. That’s how you tell these apart. Make sure that the O-rings on both ends are securely attached and that they’re there. To install this, all we have to do is line up our threads and we just go ahead and turn it into the unit. And we hook it up that way. You need to make sure that when you do this that you don’t use any tools. Hand tight is perfectly acceptable.

The intake hose is the same way. Now you’ll find that the ends on this one are pretty similar, however, on this one you’ll have a curve here. That curve actually hooks into the dishwasher. Same procedure with this one. All we do is we line it up and you may find that this O-ring has become unseated and that’s okay. Just push the nut up, seat it back in there and then thread this on to the back of the unit until it stops. Make sure that you don’t cross thread it because these threads are really fine. You may find sometimes that it’s a little difficult to line up and that’s okay. Just back it off and start it back up again.

Now we’re going to talk about the adapter that comes with your unit. This is a two-piece unit. This part simply detaches by pulling down this collar. This is the part that takes the place of your aerator on your sink. You’ll find it’s packed with two O-rings, and you may only need one. And it also has threads on the inside and outside for different types of aerators. You’ll have to experiment and see what works best. Once this is hooked up it generally stays in place and all we do is pull this collar down, insert it and release the collar.

Don’t be rough with this adapter. There’s a retaining ring right here which you can see with some ball bearings, and if you’re rough with this it will pop out and you’ll lose all your little ball bearings and you’ll have to call customer service for a replacement.

Attached to the adapter you will also find a large red button. This is your fresh water bypass. You can get fresh water from the bottom of this while your unit is running.

Now we’re going to talk about these ports. You have a drain port and you have a water supply port. The water supply is at the bottom. The hoses hook to it the same way as we did at the back of the unit, and here’s how we do that. So we’re going to pick up the other end of our hose, we’re going to make sure that the O-ring is attached and then we’re going to thread it onto the adapter. Now all you do is turn this until it’s secure. And do the same with the other hose. Remember, the drain goes up on the top. Then this whole thing attaches to your faucet and that’s it. That completes our installation on this particular part.

Using the Portable Dishwasher Control Panel

Now that we’ve installed the countertop dishwasher, we’re going to talk about the front panel controls and how to use the dishwasher.

The first thing you are going to notice is the on and off button. This powers off the unit and also helps to reset it. To turn the unit on, you’ll hear a beep and you’ll see the display light up.

The next thing that you’ll find is your program selector. Now in the display it will have different icons to indicate which program you’re on. More information to be found on that feature in your owner’s manual.

The next button that we are going to find is our start and our pause button. They’re just like a tape player or a VCR; they work the same way.

Once you power the unit on, selected your appropriate program, you’ll then hit the play button or start to start the process. If at any point you want to pause it, you’ll hit that same button again to pause the program so you can open up the door and add or take out a dish, whatever you want to do.

The next button over you’ll find is your delay button. This is handy for people that want to wait on their dishes for maybe an hour or two after they’re done. That has up to a 4 hour selectable display. To delay the unit you’ll hit that and cycle it, every time you cycle it, it gives you an hour advance. So you’ll cycle up between 1 to 4 hours.

Our next button here is our 3-in-1 button. Now you don’t have to use the powder detergent like I showed you earlier. You can use what they call a Cascade 3-in-1 pack or similar. The little tablets that are wrapped in plastic and you put those inside the dishwasher, in the cabinet; they’ll melt and distribute the detergent. This creates a situation where it’s best for those to dissolve. You’ll select that button should you wish to use that tablet for detergent.

Our display is the last segment over here on this side of the door. It displays your remaining time, your delay, what program you’re on and, possibly if you have any trouble with the unit, any trouble codes that might be associated with it.

We’re going to open up the door. You’ll find that the door is somewhat difficult to open and it does beep when you open it and close it if the unit is powered on. If the unit is powered off, you’re not going to hear any beeping. But it is difficult to open. It is designed to be that way.

Inside, as we talked about earlier, you’ll find your dish basket. This dish basket is designed for optimal loading. Your owner’s manual contains a diagram as to how to load the unit properly. Be sure to adhere to that for best results.

When you’re ready to start your load, push you dish basket back in and one last check: We need to make sure that the spray arm spins freely. Sometimes when you load up your cutlery container, you may find a fork or something sticking down in there and it could possibly block your spray arm and it’ll prevent the unit from washing the dishes the way that it should. So you want to make sure that it spins freely.

We shut the door, we hear a beep, we select our program and hit start.

I hope that this do it yourself video helps you with the install, setup and operation of your new dishwasher. If you have any questions, contact us at EdgeStar.com.

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Disclaimer: We are providing this information to aid our customers in the use of our products. Please attempt this at your own risk. We are not responsible for any harm or danger you subject yourself to. Thank you and please enjoy the video and/or written instructions.

Please note that the persons shown in the video are experts and this is for demonstration purposes only. If you attempt to do this at home, it is necessary for you to have safe and proper equipment as well as take all precautions to protect all parts of your body from harm by wearing appropriate safety gear at all times.

We cannot be responsible for any damage of any type to yourself or held liable for any damage to the equipment you are working with. Customer is presumed to have a fair level of skill in performing any DIY. All information posted in this section is provided “as is” without any warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to fitness for a particular use. Any user assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and use of this information.